


and she never wanted to leave

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, the horns start to sound and he has to watch her head off to battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-01-24 10:17:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18569377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: As soldiers shout and horns trumpet, it occurs to him, it is to be a long night and perhaps his last.He turns to look down at Arya who is clutching the weapon he made her with white fists and all he can think is, Gods, he hopes he made her weapon strong enough to withstand the fight.





	1. before the long night

They have candle light to fight by if they are lucky. Some flanks must make do with the little they can see from the moon, but it was always going to be this way. The living are at a disadvantage— they cannot see in the dark.

Gendry feels the weight of his hammer dragging him down to the earth he might well be buried in by morning. As soldiers shout and horns trumpet, it occurs to him, it is to be a long night and perhaps his last. 

He turns to look down at Arya who is clutching the weapon he made her with white fists and all he can think is, Gods, he hopes he made her weapon strong enough to withstand the fight. 

When they were still heading north and evading Lannister soldiers, he remembers her screaming “For Winterfell” in every silly scrap. Tonight, she fights for Winterfell, too. And he fights for her. 

“Are you afraid?” she asks and her voice is as razor sharp as the castle-forged steel sword hanging off of her hip. He had held those hips not two hours ago, as she sat astride him and panted his name. The small corner of the castle they had made their bed for a time was much warmer than the cold that now stings his cheeks. 

He nods, “Course I am.” He reaches for her hand and she laces their gloved fingertips with a confidence he is learning might always surprise him. “Aren’t you?” 

She tilts her little chin up at him. It startles him how everything about her is so little. She has tiny hands and a small stature and little, perfect tits. He faces death easier knowing that last. 

Arya wilfully shakes her head, “I’m not afraid of dying.”

He meets her gaze, and speaks softly, “I am.” Horns blaze in the background and there is a flutter of anxiety sweeping through the soldiers on the battlements. It makes his own hands quake. 

Arya holds him steady. “Be safe, you bullheaded bastard,” she says and it sounds an awful lot like a declaration of love. It is unfair, he thinks, that they have so little time. 

He jerks a nod as she slips her hand out of his grasp and starts to march away from him. “As you wish, milady,” he croaks.

Her shoulders tense. She looks over her shoulder at him and he stands dumbly under her piercing grey eyes. “How many times must I tell you not to call me that?” she challenges.

“As always, just once more.” 

Something fragile breaks in the mask that is Arya Stark. Her eyes soften and she bridges the gap between them with long, intentional steps. She throws her arms around him and their mouths meet in the middle in a desperate, mournful kiss. 

He is still learning how she likes to be kissed, he realizes. He hasn’t had a hundred afternoons to know her sweet sounds and the way she tastes by memory. He has one night to commit it all to his mind, and this kiss now. 

Gendry lifts her off her feet slightly and they sway from the intensity of their kissing. 

The horns blare. 

He emits the saddest sound against her lips. They are simply out of time. She grants him one last, soft kiss and against those lips, she whispers, “Your life is mine, Gendry. Don’t let those undead shits take it.” 

Then, she is gone from his arms and he feels bereft of her, of where she fit so strangely and seamlessly. As he watches her march away to likely death, he weighs the value of asking her to stay behind in the crypts, again. He knows she won’t. It feels desperate to beg her to be safe. But he is so afraid. Not for himself. If it is his time, he will gladly go to the doors of death, but her, _oh her_ , he wishes her safe and well and happy. 

He loves her. 

He hears Davos, who seems to have materialized out of thin air, clear his throat and he grunts, “What are you looking at, old man?”

One of the smiths call for him and Davos affectionately rolls his eyes, “Off with you, lad,” and he goes sprinting. 

The war has begun. 


	2. after the long night

She is gone from the Godswood before the dawn. There is something of her brother’s eyes, the one that climbed trees and chased her across the grounds, when their gazes lock before she flees. There is a softness that lurks behind the all-knowing. 

Soon, the survivors will come searching for Bran and Theon. They will see the Night King is dead and his armies have fallen. What happened in the Godswood will turn from history to legend. People will sing songs about the Bringer of the Dawn. 

They will say it was no one. 

No One remains in the Godswood. 

It is Arya Stark that shouts his name when she rip-roars into the devastated courtyard. It is Arya Stark that is plucked from the ground by her bastard brother and folded into a tight, relieved embrace. It is Arya Stark that clings to Jon. He whispers, “Thank the Gods.” 

When they can finally stand to let each other go, Arya blinks her wide, grey eyes up at him and asks, “Sansa?” She is counting off her pack. She has a list of names that breathe life into her cracked chest, not death. The God of Death has taken so much. He cannot have her family. 

Jon shakes his head, “I don’t know.” Together, they weave through the heaps of dead bodies and the screaming soldiers that search for their loved ones, friends, comrades. All of Winterfell is screaming. 

Yet, Arya would know her sister’s voice anywhere. “Jon! Arya!” 

“Sansa,” Jon shouts back and the three remaining children of Winterfell— Bran is something else now— collide. Sansa is taller than them all. Yet, she feels so frail and small crushed in Arya’s embrace. 

In her long auburn, smoke-smelling hair, Arya asks, “Were you safe?”

Sansa does not answer. Instead, she says, “I’m alive.” For now, it is enough. 

The screaming continues for a long time. People still shout and sob and wail as they traverse the devastation of her childhood home, her father’s house. Sansa is helping the smallfolk. Jon is searching for the Dragon Queen, his eyes welling with terrified tears. 

Arya shouts his name. It bleeds into the screaming, as if his name matters so little. He is no Lord, no King, no Knight. If he had fallen, there would no songs in his honor. Few would mourn him. History would forget him. Arya feels her chest constrict. 

“Don’t be dead, you stupid bull,” she grits between her wired jaw. It is taking all of her effort not to cry. She does not. 

Finally, she succumbs to her sadness and whimpers, “ _ Gendry _ .”

And that is when she hears it— the panicked, almost furious call of her own name. “Seven Hells!” He cries. “Arya!” She spots him across the way and her broken staff is clutched in his fist. “ARYA!”

Over the years, she has learned not to speak. She has learned that the cousin of death is silence. She has learned how much she can lose by speaking, by wishing. 

And she is sick of losing things. So, as quietly as the Bringer of the Dawn, she glides across what is left of Winterfell and before he has time to spot her, she is pulling him down by his jerkin and they are kissing. 

He emits a small, surprised noise and she feels him tense. It hits him all-at-once, she can feel it in the tremble of his lip, that she is alive and in his arms. He sobs in relief against their warring mouths and clutches her forearms tightly. “Arya,” he grunts between kisses. “Bleeding hell, Arya.” He kisses her harder. 

Bran. Jon. Sansa. Gendry. 

She counts the names in her head. All alive. 

And all because of her. 


End file.
